


Better Not to Know

by bookwyrmling



Category: Fatal Journey, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Fatal Journey Compliant, Gen, Guanyin Temple, In This House we Love and Protect Niè Huáisāng, POV Niè Huáisāng, spoilers for both, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: Jīn Guāngyáo is dead, but Huáisāng's work isn't over yet. Not while his second brother sits broken and alone on the temple steps.
Relationships: Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén & Mèng Yáo | Jīn Guāngyáo, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén & Niè Huáisāng, Niè Huáisāng & Niè Míngjué
Comments: 35
Kudos: 207





	Better Not to Know

It was better not to know.

In his pink-stained robes, staring off into the distance, Huáisāng couldn’t help but overlay Zéwú-jūn with his brother, broken and bent in the Sword Sacrifice Hall as he stared at the fallen bodies of their compatriots.

_“What happened to them?”_

_“The sword spirit killed them.”_

His brother had cried, then. Screaming his agony at their loss to his supposed willfulness.

It was better than the other option, though.

Sometimes, it was better not to know.

“Xīchén-gē…”

Huáisāng could see the tears as they fell, silent and neat, careful lines down his cheeks that dripped off his chin, unlike his brother’s messy wails, but striking and alarming nonetheless on a Twin Jade of Lan.

“I thought I knew him well,” Zéwú-jūn spoke, barely above a whisper, his voice noticeably measured as the man clearly strove, even now, to maintain his clan and sect teachings and pride.

“It turns out I didn’t.”

There were times Huáisāng wished he could say the same. Wished he did not know Jīn Guāngyáo as well as he did. Could not look at the news his sect members brought back or his whimpering and sniveling left him privy to as he was classified a non-entity and see exactly which moves the man had been making. Wished he did not have to understand why.

A part of him wished he could have remained as he was, painting fans and avoiding his duties. Forgetting his saber but never his jade pendant or his fan. His third brother would bring him art and stories and his eldest brother would scold the both of them and his second brother would stand in the middle in an effort to bring back peace.

Barring that, at least the bliss of believing the condolences and tears Jīn Guāngyáo had offered him upon his brother’s passing were real.

Sometimes it was better not to know.

Huáisāng hadn’t gotten that option, though.

Instead, he had a plot for vengeance ten years in the making. He looked at his second brother, manipulated on both sides, blind to all that happened around him until it was far too late. He looked at the debris and destruction and blood that littered the temple grounds. He thought of his brother’s pieced-together body and blade sealed in a coffin beneath the rubble. And still he could not regret it.

It didn’t bring his brother back. It didn’t fill the hole Jīn Guāngyáo had carved out of his chest or soothe the angry fire Huáisāng had lit in its place, but it had been his decisions that had wrought this, so he, out of everyone here, could not regret and he, out of everyone here, should shoulder the blame.

“Xīchén-gē,” he soothed, “No one can fully understand one another.”

“Huáisāng, was he really about to attack me from the back?”

An insidious voice in Huáisāng’s mind dared him to tell the truth. It shouted blame and hurt. It asked, “Why me?” It begged to be understood and exonerated. “Why not you?” it hissed at Zéwú-jūn’s willful blindness. It pressed his tongue against his teeth, a child’s voice that had just lost the one who had promised to always protect him twisted and knotted with the agony of the betrayed.

It sounded far too much like Jīn Guāngyáo, crying to their second brother, seeking understand the man could not, would not provide.

Sometimes it was better not to know.

“I...I seemed to have seen…” Huáisāng stuttered, prepared to play his part through to the end.

It was harder than he’d thought it would be. He’d lasted so far because no one had ever questioned him directly. He’d fallen so smoothly into his role so quickly after his brother’s passing that no one thought to question anything but his competency.

But he’d had to take off the mask to a select few over the past several hours and while Zéwú-jūn was not one of those few, he’d had the chance to grab a glimpse if he wanted to. If he truly looked.

But when did Zéwú-jūn ever do that?

“Is that true?”

Huáisāng blinked and his jaw trembled under the pleading stare.

Had he looked? Had he seen?

_Lying is forbidden in Cloud Recesses._

This was not Cloud Recesses. Huáisāng was not a member of the Lan Sect.

All the same, Zéwú-jūn asked him once again and Huáisāng wavered.

“Huáisāng, is it true?”

Huáisāng looked away and reminded himself of his decision.

It was better not to know.

“Xīchén-gē, the way you are asking…” he whined uncertainly, the Headshaker present in full-force, “even I can’t be certain now. I don’t know.”

He held his breath, but Zéwú-jūn turned away and said no more, his ripples soothing once more into placid stillness.

People flooded through the gates, dressed in whites and blues and purples and golds. They flocked to Lán Wàngjī and Wèi Wúxiàn, checked in with Jiāng Wǎnyín and rushed into the shattered temple.

Huáisāng had told his people to stay away until the situation was resolved. They had known enough to know the Headshaker was a pretense they should help to spread given the opportunity, even as they followed his orders to the last detail and without question. They knew little else, but obeyed all the same, the loyalty of a tight-knit clan and sect the sole shield he had borne since he took up his brother’s mantle.

They knew, too, after all, that they were safer not knowing.

Zéwú-jūn followed his uncle into the temple, stumbling as if he were drunk, as if he were mortally wounded, as if he carried both their brothers’ full weight on his shoulders alone. Huáisāng wanted to follow, to hold his brother up or talk him into sitting back down, to get him to put such a heavy burden down. But that wasn’t his place, nor had it ever been.

A familiar item hid on the ground amid the debris. Huáisāng reached out and picked up the black felt hat Jīn Guāngyáo had worn since obtaining his new name. Blood from the brim transferred to his hands as he tried to brush the dust off it and in his mind he heard the dead man howling his name as realization finally set in.

Across the courtyard, people laughed. It was muted, but it was there. Huáisāng smiled at them but held the hat close and walked towards the temple gate.

Yes. It truly was better not to know.

**Author's Note:**

> I TOLD myself I wasn't going to do this. I have enough fandoms and enough WIPs and I didn't need more of either. But then I saw Fatal Journey and fuck you in particular Niè Huáisāng.
> 
> Please fill free to hit me up on bookwyrmling.tumblr.com to scream about MDZS. I need more people to do that with.
> 
> Unbetad as none of my friends have seen Fatal Journey yet, so all mistakes are mine.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Better Not to Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24248722) by [Jet_pods (Jetainia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jetainia/pseuds/Jet_pods)
  * [[Podfic] Better Not to Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24376684) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




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